Epictetus Quotes

The flourishing life cannot be achieved until we moderate our desires and see how superficial and fleeting they are.

We should not have either a blunt knife or a freedom of speech which is ill-managed.

To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable.

Never look for your work in one place and your progress in another.

If you have assumed a character above your strength, you have both acted in this matter in an unbecoming way, and you have neglected that which you might have fulfilled.

Every habit and faculty is preserved and increased by correspondent actions, as the habit of walking, by walking; of running, by running.

If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?

If you have anything better to be doing when death overtakes you, get to work on that.

"But to be hanged - is that not unendurable?" Even so, when a man feels that it is reasonable, he goes off and hangs himself.

A man that seeks truth and loves it must be reckoned precious to any human society.

If your heart is quite set upon a crown, make and put on one of roses, for it will make the prettier appearance.

Man is not fully free unless he is master of himself.

A thing either is what it appears to be; or it is not, but yet appears to be; or it is, but does not appear to be; or it is not, and does not appear to be.

Survey and test a prospective action before undertaking it. Before you proceed, step back and look at the big picture, lest you act rashly on raw impulse.

Asked, Who is the rich man? Epictetus replied, �He who is content.

Act well your given part; the choice rests not with you.

Difficulty shows what men are.

You lose only the things you have

It is your own convictions which compels you; that is, choice compels choice.

If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad.

We are not to lead events, but to follow them.

Men are not afraid of things, but of how they view them.

He who is not happy with little will never be happy with much.

Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.

What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing for this, I was training for this.

If you seek Truth, you will not seek to gain a victory by every possible means; and when you have found Truth, you need not fear being defeated.

What is it that every man seeks? To be secure, to be happy, to do what he pleases without restraint and without compulsion.

What is yours is to play the assigned part well. But to choose it belongs to someone else

When one maintains his proper attitude in life, he does not long after externals.

Let death and exile, and all other things which appear terrible be daily before your eyes, but chiefly death, and you win never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything.

Give me by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account!

If what charms you is nothing but abstract principles, sit down and turn them over quietly in your mind: but never dub yourself a Philosopher.

In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles.

Don't be prideful with any excellence that is not your own

Things themselves don't hurt or hinder us. Things simply are what they are. How we view these things is another matter.People think what they will think; it is of no concern to us.

Confident because of our caution

Appear to know only this--never to fail nor fall.

With ills unending strives the putter off.

When a man is proud because he can understand and explain the writings of Chrysippus, say to yourself, 'if Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this man would have had nothing to be proud of.'

It were no slight attainment could we merely fulfil what the nature of man implies.

As it is pleasant to see the sea from the land, so it is pleasant for him who has escaped from troubles to think of them.

It is impossible that happiness, and yearning for what is not present, should ever be united.

Two principles we should always have ready — that there is nothing good or evil save in the will; and that we are not to lead events, but to follow them.

In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it

We ought to flee the friendship of the wicked, and the enmity of the good.

What is death? A scary mask. Take it off-see, it doesn't bite.

Nothing great comes into being all at once.

Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.

Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.

You are a principal work, a fragment of [Goddess herself], you have in yourself a part of [her]. Why then are you ignorant of your high birth?